How to have switchable armor/clothing/weapons in an RPG game?

I need help with being able to implement switchable armor, weapons and clothing into my game. i want the character to start out with normal clothing and then upon finding new armor the character can equip this new armor. I want it to be visual that the clothing is changed and the defense etc. change. Do you do this by extruding faces of the character say around the torso and then set them as a separate piece and go design the clothing from there? And how many polygons/faces should a character/ clothing have for a PC game (not mobile)? And for the weapons do I just rig the weapon in the characters hand and have it play with different animations or what?